The Home Circle by Earl of Lytton

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 15, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 39.

The Home Circle.

By Earl of Lytton

TEARS.

THERE be three hundred ways and more Of speaking, but of weeping only one; And this one way, the wide world o'er and o'er, Is known by all, though it is taught by none. No man is master of this ancient lore, And no man pupil. Every simpleton Can weep as well as every sage. The man Does it no better than the infant can.

The first thing all men learn is how to speak, Yet understand they not each other's speech; But tears are neither Latin, nor yet Greek, Nor prose, nor verse. The language that they teach Is universal. Cleopatra's cheek They decked with pearls no richer than from each Of earth's innumerable mourners fall Unstudied, yet correctly classical.

Tears are the oldest and the commonest Of all the things upon earth, and yet how new The tale each time told by them! how unblessed Were life's hard way without their heavenly dew! Joy borrows them from Grief; Faith trembles lest She lose them; even Hope herself smiles through The rainbow they make around her as they fall; And death, that cannot weep, sets weeping all.

—Earl of Lytton, in Glenaverill.